


bloodied, wretched, fallible finality

by reallivewire (WonderAvian)



Category: Halloween Movies - All Media Types
Genre: Blood and Gore, Gen, Movie: Halloween H20: 20 Years Later
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-24
Updated: 2021-01-24
Packaged: 2021-03-16 04:13:22
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,432
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28950198
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/WonderAvian/pseuds/reallivewire
Summary: Michael is sick.Inspired by WeWatchedAMovie's commentary of H20.
Relationships: Michael Myers & Laurie Strode
Kudos: 6





	bloodied, wretched, fallible finality

The mask is different.

Its the first thought to cross Laurie's mind. It is fleeting and scared, ricocheting in the midst of the storm that is the shock horror she feels.

The mask is shaped differently, and through its eyeholes she can see Michael's eyes.

They are dark, Laurie realises. So dark they are indistinguishable from the pitch black sky.

There is nothing good in them.

Michael tilts his head. He observes silently, wordless as ever. His eyes relay open puzzlement, curiosity, and intrigue.

Laurie reels back in revulsion. She had seen that before, once, a long time ago. Her hands fly to her belt, more than prepared to shoot out the monster's eyes again.

In the few seconds it takes for her to look back up with her gun in hand, Michael has already disappeared.

* * *

Will shot Ronnie.

The guilt that rips through Laurie's chest is agonising. She should have been more alert, shouldn't have let herself be distracted, should have been faster -

"WILL!"

Laurie isn't sure whether its good or bad luck that she is fast enough to see Michael step behind Will right before he stabs her lover in the back.

Michael tilts his head from side to side in some form of sick, twisted, perverted interest as Will spasms on the knife.

Laurie staggers backwards, and Michael turns to look at her.

_Look at what I can do._

Laurie turns and runs. There's a loud thump as Will's body is unceremoniously dropped to the floor, and then the heavy footfalls that signal Michael's deadly approach.

There's nothing but clothes in the closet Laurie checks, and she swears violently as she rushes to hide.

Michael stops a few feet away from the closet. He stays still for a moment, before turning on the closet and pulling madly at the door handle. Giving up on that, he starts stabbing through the wood, and then all but bashes it down with his inhuman strength.

_Haven't we played this song and dance before, Laurie?_

He seems confused when he realises Laurie isn't there, and Laurie revels in getting to smash him over the head with the fire extinguisher.

Michael drops like a sack of bricks, and Laurie dashes for where the kids are hiding, yelling "Open up, its me!" and shouting for them to "Go, go!"

Behind them, Michael gets to his feet. Laurie doesn't dare to look back anymore as Michael stalks down the hall, gaze locked on the small forms of his retreating prey, eyes dark and deadly and ready for the kill.

* * *

Laurie gets the kids to the car even as Michael still closes in on them. The car refuses to start at first, and the few seconds wasted gives Michael time enough to grab onto the driver's side door and stare at her through the window.

Heart in her throat, Laurie speeds off, leaving Michael in the dust.

Laurie can see him standing there, still as a statue, an ominous figure in the rear view mirror as she drives away.

* * *

The relief Laurie feels as the kids drive away to safety is short-lived. She can't let Michael get to them under any circumstances. He's too dangerous to let out.

Laurie takes a rock and smashes it against the key pad. Sparks fly, and Laurie lets the rock fall.

Now there is no getting out.

Laurie smashes the glass containing the fire axe. No longer defenceless, she strides up the drive to make her stand.

"MICHAEL!"

This time, she isn't locked in with Michael.

No.

This time, Michael is locked in with her.

* * *

He's hiding again. Michael was always good at hiding.

The sound he makes when he drops to the floor is unavoidable, though, and it allows Laurie to swing around and lodge the axe in his shoulder right before he takes a swing at her.

The knife cuts open her left upper forearm, the exact same place as it did twenty years earlier, and Laurie books it for the main hall.

Hand over her arm, she dives underneath a table just in time to hear Michael wrench the axe free and throw it to the ground, and then he walks, slowly, towards her.

She hears him enter the room before she sees him, and there he is, dark green-blue-black coveralls steadily making their way along her field of vision. He stops in front of her, and she can imagine him slowly turning his head from side to side. Laurie holds her breath, waiting, hoping for him to go away.

He does, thankfully, and she gives herself a moment to breathe. When she opens her eyes again, she realises she can't see him, and her heart sinks. The table creaks, and she looks up, to where Michael is surely standing.

What is he waiting for? He knows she's there. He's fucking with her, at this point.

Laurie grimaces, and moves to the side.

The white face looms, and the knife swipes downwards.

Laurie hastens back under the table. Swallowing down panic, she reaches back and knocks over a chair with her foot.

The table creaks, and Laurie rolls to the side. Michael follows, landing in front of her with a vicious swipe of the knife, and Laurie hurries to the other side.

As Laurie army crawls under the tables, Michael seems to grow angrier, flipping each row over as he chases her. He's mad, pissed off, positively seething, and grown tired of playing around.

Laurie lunges for the flag pole just as Michael catches up to her. Spinning on her heel, she thrusts forward and impales him on it.

The pole snaps in half, and Michael falls on his ass. He scrabbles for the improvised wooden stake in his gut, dodging the other half Laurie throws at him. He wrenches the stake free, and Laurie turns to run.

Michael coughs. 

Laurie stumbles to a stop.

Something wet sounds from beneath the mask. Michael doubles over, hacking and retching.

Laurie stills in the doorway.

She's confused and a little stunned, because Michael has lifted the bottom of the mask, and is vomiting an awful mix of bile, flesh, and blood onto the previously pristine floor.

Michael Myers, the Shape, the boogeyman of Haddonfield and the taker of lives is not human enough to fall prey to something as normal as getting _sick._

And yet here he is, curled up and shivering on the floor of Laurie's high school, ill and in pain, dressed in stolen coveralls that no longer fit him.

He's lost weight, Laurie realises.

And Michael's not a skinny twenty-one year old anymore.

Blood splatters on the floor for the final time. With one last shudder, Michael falls still.

Laurie doesn't move. She eyes Michael's 'corpse' with distrust. Just because she can't see him breathing under those baggy coveralls doesn't mean he's dead.

Michael remains motionless.

Laurie's gaze flickers towards the knife.

Make sure.

Laurie steps cautiously forwards and kneels down, ready to bolt at any sudden movements. A quick glance at the mask shows Michael's eyes are still closed. Laurie takes hold of the blade between her thumb and forefinger and begins to tug it out of Michael's relaxed grip.

She nearly has the knife free when she meets sudden resistance. Laurie freezes at the first useless tug, and she looks to where Michael's lean fingers curl tightly around the handle.

Laurie barely manages to avoid the next swing as Michael awkwardly clambers to his feet. Reaching up with bloodstained hands, he pulls down the mask so he is hidden again.

There is no more vulnerability. Michael is still going to do his best to kill her, despite however much his all too human body screams for the stubborn bastard to stop.

There can be no room for mercy.

Laurie runs.

* * *

There's a kitchen, and Laurie crashes into it, pulling shelves over to give herself just a few more seconds.

There are knives here, and Laurie yanks open the drawer.

Michael steps around the corner, pushing the shelving away without bothering to look.

Laurie dumps the knives all over the floor, and she starts throwing them at Michael as he walks towards her.

Michael avoids the onslaught with jerky twitches of the head, unflinching even as one of the blades sticks itself in the wall behind him.

Laurie scrambles for something to protect herself with, and not a moment later the chef's knife pierces through the wooden board, only a couple of inches next to her face.

Laurie knees Michael in the crotch as hard as she can. Michael jolts in place and Laurie catches a glimpse of deep black eyes widened in surprise before Michael pushes her away.

They push each other away, and Laurie watches as Michael, enraged, struggles to free the knife. The board clatters to the floor, and he turns on her, breathing heavily.

Laurie has lost count of how many times she's run away tonight.

* * *

At last, she catches him unawares.

Michael is messy, Laurie notes. It seems that for every swing he misses, she manages to land a hit on him. He's wild, almost frantic, and if Laurie didn't know better, she'd say Michael is panicking.

With a knife in each hand she stabs him, and stabs him, and stabs him again and again and again, until the floor disappears out from under Michael's feet and he falls, bending in half before he smashes into a table, knife slipping from his hand and head falling to the side, useless and no longer needed.

Laurie takes a moment to breathe. Reality sinks in. Almost in disbelief, she staggers down the stairs.

Michael lies prone upon the broken table, gangly limbs spread like the archangel that shares his name. His eyes are closed.

The knife makes a gross sound as she pulls it free from Michael's bloody chest. She raises it high in a double handed grip, ready to plunge into her brother's heart, at last putting an end to the unkillable monster.

But then Ronnie is there, alive, telling her to "stop!" and "he's dead, its over," and suddenly Laurie is too tired to stop him from pulling her away.

* * *

John and Molly are alive and well, and Ronnie is talking enthusiastically to his wife. Its supposed to be a happy ending, but Will and two kids are still dead and Laurie can't share the sentiment.

Paramedics zip up the body bag that holds her brother, and instinctively she knows that it is not over yet.

She has the axe, and she nabs a policeman's gun as she directs the authorities to load Michael into the truck.

She climbs in and slams the door shut, ignoring the way her heart aches as John calls out for her.

_I'm sorry, John._

* * *

She doesn't quite know where she's going, only that its away from the school, somewhere where she can't be prevented from doing what she has to do.

She glances in the rear view mirror.

"Come on, you bastard."

Sure enough, the bag begins to move, and powerful hands tear it open from the inside.

Michael pokes his head out as they round the corner, confused and disorientated, until he sees who is driving him and Laurie hits the brakes when he lunges for her with renewed bloodlust.

Michael crashes through the window, rolling several times before he comes to a stop.

Laurie watches him coldly.

"Come on," she says impatiently. "Get up."

Michael lurches upright. His head bobs awkwardly, as if groggy. He turns to look at her.

Laurie guns the accelerator. Michael is knocked up onto the front of the truck, and the siblings stare at each other as they go careening over the hill.

The truck rolls over, and Laurie leaps to safety just in time. Michael is less fortunate, and he lands against a fallen tree, whereupon the truck hits him from behind, crushing him and pinning him to the spot.

Something ignites. A fire starts beneath the truck, giving light to see by in the dark.

The moon peeks out from behind a cloud as Laurie picks up the axe and makes her away around to the front of the truck.

Michael appears unconscious. His arms hang over the fallen tree branch to which he's pinned. Blood and bile and other nasty things coat the front of his coveralls, where the material is practically soaked in the foul mix of liquid and flesh.

Laurie's throat burns when she finally speaks.

"Michael." 

Michael stirs. He takes no note of Laurie's presence. Instead, Michael grips and tears at the mask's fake hair in clear distress. An odd, keening sound emanates from his throat. Its the most Laurie has ever heard from him.

"Michael."

The panic worsens. Michael continues to flail as Laurie watches.

"Michael!"

Michael startles. He blinks rapidly for a moment, arms hovering in the air. A full-bodied shudder runs through him, and he lets his arms fall, given up.

Laurie rips off the mask.

Michael seems to deflate where he's pinned. Slowly, he looks up at her.

Laurie had only seen Michael's true face once before, in a fleeting blink-and-miss-it moment that left her mind to fill in the blanks where the evening light did not reach.

Its the same face.

Michael looks the same.

Except this time, though, he's not a monster.

Outside of Laurie's mind, he looks almost... Normal. Completely too normal.

Faded burns criss-cross otherwise youthful features. They ripple grotesquely as the facial muscles move.

A jagged scar has left Michael's left eye and the skin around it permanently disfigured from where twenty tears ago to the day Laurie had lashed out at it with a wire coat-hanger.  
  
Brown curls tinged with grey frame Michael's face, and they bounce lightly when he moves his head.

Blood bubbles up in his mouth and spills downwards when he parts his lips.

Michael looks as tired as Laurie feels.

There's a moment of silence in which neither of them move. Laurie wonders if she should ask the question on everyones' mind when it came to Michael Myers.

Why?

Michael Myers never dealt in why's.

He only kills.

And he's her brother.

Michael shakily holds his hand out.

Unbidden tears sting at Laurie's eyes. She reaches for Michael.

Their fingertips brush. Michael's eyes never leave hers.

Sadness. Desperation. Anger. Fear.

Resignation.

The Shape's eyes are dark.

There is nothing good in them.

Laurie draws back and swings the axe.

The Shape's mask falls to the ground, and its body collapses against the tree, a puppet with cut strings, headless and spurting blood.

_I'm glad... Its finally... Over..._

Fin.


End file.
